“They’re very different,” I say. “A power suit is good for a last impression.”
Mom smiles. “A girl after my own heart,” she says, setting down the dress. My mother has been saying things like this ever since I woke up from the coma. She’s been warm and funny and tender, available, things I never thought my mother could even be.
It’s making me doubt if I imagined the last eighteen years of my life, if the loving but distant mom I had only existed in my mind.
“Mom,” I say, sitting on the edge of her bed as she tries to select a matching handbag and shoes to pair with the suit. “I feel like…”
I genuinely have no clue how I’m supposed to make sense of the different versions of my mother. The last time I saw her—the comaher, at least—she was about to lose everything. Now she’s getting some incredible honor by the very city council that wanted her out.
“Is something going on? Is the cityreallyhonoring you for a successful first term?”
Mom looks at me, sighs, then puts down the suit. “I should have known you wouldn’t be fooled.”
“Fooled by what?” I ask.
Mom sits on the other side of the bed. “No,” she says. “Honey, I’m actually being forced out by the city council. Because of some…bad choices on my part.”
“Was it an affair?”
Mom’s eyes widen. “How did you…”
The only person who knew, who could have told me this in my sleep, was my mother. And she clearly did not.
But I just frown, ignoring her question. “Right, and nothing says forced out like a giant party?”
Mom plays with a loose string on her comforter. “It was a deal I struck. If I agreed to resign, give up my reelection bid, and concede on some of our political gains and wins over the past three years, they’d let me resign and leave with my head held high.”
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” I say.
“It hurt like hell,” Mom says, “but I think it’s for the best. A stronger person might have refused to bend and chosen to bear the consequences of what they’d done, but I just…I worked so hard for their respect, you know? And for the sake of every other Black politician that enters local politics after me, I didn’t want to leave such an ugly stain.”
I feel a sudden hot rage rise in my chest. “Maybe you shouldn’t have done it, then.”
Mom’s look of surprise takes up her whole face. “Excuse me?”
I should back down. IknowI should, but I am just as furious as before. Furious that she made such a big, careless mistake that could have cost us everything. Furious that she wanted me believing she really was being honored by the city. Furious that in the coma version of reality,Ihad to comforther, despite the fact that she had screwed up. But most of all, I’m furious that something happened in the coma thatwasreal and she wasn’t going to tell me. I’d have gone on thinking everything from the coma was wrong, when it turns out some things were spot-on.
“You’re a hypocrite and a liar,” I say, ignoring the alarm bells going off in my head, warning me that I’m going too far. “For years, you’ve pretended to be perfect. Judged everyone who wasn’t. Accepted only the highest standards.
“If I brought home a report card with an A minus, you’d fixate on the minus. When I came second in track, your whole thing was how I could come first. Be the first Black girl to be district champion. If I talked too loud during one of your events, you said it reflected on all of us.”
“Of course, I always want you to be your best,” she says, defensive.
“If you wanted me to be my best, why were you only ever concerned about what other people thought? If I tripped, you’d probably ask who saw me.”
I’m surprised by how spiteful I sound.
“Nothing Dad did wasevergood enough for you. From howclean his closet was to his friends to how he took care of me, there was always,alwayssomething wrong.”
Mom blinks. “I was just trying…I wanted the best for all of us.”
“That’s what you say, but you mean you wanted everyone else to be the best and you just wanted to look good,looklike the best.”
My mother flinches like she’s been slapped. “That is not true. Where is all this coming from?”
“Did you eventhinkwhen you were sleeping with stupid Brian of how it would affect us? How it would affect me?” I ask. Something has turned Mom’s expression from hurt to shock, but I don’t stop to find out what. “Or does that only count where other people are concerned?”
“Zadie, I have no idea what has gotten into you, but I’m not going to listen to any more of this.”
